


this cannot be hell if i am with you

by kmichs



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmichs/pseuds/kmichs
Summary: It does not take an act of self-sacrifice to make Tenten feel at home inside the Infinite Tsukuyomi. It’s Neji, alive.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	this cannot be hell if i am with you

**Author's Note:**

> Me with non-compartmentalized grief from my personal losses, watching Tenten wake up in the Infinite Tsukuyomi and barely even acknowledging that Neji is alive after watching him die on the battlefield earlier that day: girl what on earth are you DOING
> 
> Also I definitely toned down Neji's Tsukuyomi personality so that I could tone up the angst. Anyway, enjoy!

She’d felt so much pressure to get back to the battlefield. She didn’t notice anything was amiss, at first. There was nothing but a need to get from Konoha to where she swore she had been moments ago. It wasn't until the adrenaline began to melt away, until her lungs began to burn from the running. It took too long to notice how wrong everything felt.

None of the villagers around her seemed troubled. The weight of reality was on her alone. She stopped, gasping for air. The pressure she was feeling was real, but her surroundings gave her the feeling it had all been a distant dream.

All around her, everyone was acting like there was no war. It seemed that there was nothing better to do than stand around and chat or shop or eat. They were smiling, even: who could smile at a time like this? How could it be appropriate or even comfortable to laugh when there was a war going on right beyond the village walls? How could they be so carefree when members of the Allied Force were being wiped out en masse..? Tenten fought the urge to think of the person the war had stolen from her.

She knew she had something important--something worth returning to the front line. The scroll was still tucked in her jacket, pressing against her ribs. If not for its eminent importance, she'd have considered it a burden to carry back. It was uncomfortable but it was safe with her. It served as a constant reminder of her need to get out of here. To get back to where she is needed.

It didn’t dawn on her all at once. It didn’t click until she ran into her remaining teammates here, too, acting the same as everyone else.

She didn’t know if she’d ever seen Lee or Guy not wearing their ridiculous matching jumpsuits. The collared white shirt under their uniform vests was the first thing she noticed. In fact, it was the only thing she noticed, at first--she didn't hear whatever it was they were saying. She could not shake the sudden feeling washing over her that something was not right, and for some reason, it manifested in those shirts.

“Not right” didn’t cover it. Something was abhorrently wrong.

The wrongness revealed itself not all at once. The last piece of "wrong" was yet to come.

She heard him before she saw him. It was his voice, too loud, but still his. Though it had been but a few hours since his departure, Tenten fought off tears because she knew exactly who it was. He leapt off a roof somewhere behind her and landed gracefully, as always.

It was Neji, whose death had stalled what felt like the entire battlefield. Whose life, now, was stalling her entire being. She couldn’t breathe.

She remembered the arrogance of the enemy as Neji’s death had been announced. And here, her stomach turned over in the same way here that it had in the battle. She wished she only had to feel it once.

Despite succumbing to unsurmountable wounds, Neji was standing here, out of her reach. Her eyes were wide and she was struggling to function, but no one seemed to notice. She had to remind herself to blink or even breathe.

Then, he grinned, and something broke within her.

This was not Neji--it couldn’t be. There were too many giveaways: his posture was different, less proud. He was smiling, an act that in itself was uncharacteristic. She acknowledged last that his Byakugan was active outside of combat.

But his voice was the same. She did not hear what exactly he had said. She was both repulsed and awed by his strange, lunatic yell.

This was not Neji--it couldn’t be. It couldn't.

Tenten continued to hold back tears. Her thoughts were torn between “he’s dead, he cannot be anything but dead” and “he’s right here and he is okay.” She suppressed the urge to scream, but she could not do both. She could not suppress the tears.

No one appeared to notice her reaction to this strange reality. No one noticed. Tenten was a stranger to the world, now, as Lee stepped forward. Unlike Tenten, Lee was acting as if this were usual behavior from Neji. With his awkward, impossibly parted hair, he said something scornful, reprimanding their teammate. Again, Tenten was too shocked to actually understand them. All she heard was the exchange of raised voices.

They were acting like nothing was going on. It was like there wasn’t a battlefield outside their nation’s walls. So, what had happened? Where was the war? Where was their urgency to return to it? How had they left in the first place?

“What’s going on?” asked another recognizable voice from behind her. Whatever brief understanding she had made of all this came to a screeching halt.

Tenten looked up, shaken from her reverie to see team seven--the original team seven. No--this was not team seven. Something was off about each of them. For starters, no one found it out of the ordinary that Sasuke was here. Despite his participation in the war, he was still a criminal who couldn't be here. How was he here, in the Konoha public without reprimand?

The entire presence of their formerly absent teammate was almost the strangest part. Tenten almost glossed over Sakura’s near-vacant stare at the boys. She almost didn’t notice the way Naruto’s hair had grown beyond his usual look. In her second glance at him, she’d recognize that his hair was grown out to replicate his father’s. His father, who he’d only just met, reanimated on the battlefield that she needed to return to.

As if nothing about this was so inherently wrong, Lee groaned, “It’s the same thing as always.” Tenten felt her head spinning. She wanted to embrace the feeling. She could only hope to pass out and wake up back where she was needed.

But the feeling passed, and she lacked the resolve to ask what was going on. She couldn’t piece anything together, either. This was too bizarre to be a waking dream. Then again, so was the war under wage among the dead.

While the guys were caught up in some conversation about Neji’s “same as always” behavior, Tenten was attempting to focus on anything that could help her get answers. But she couldn't find the strength to shift her focus beyond her team’s bickering. Somehow, the entirety of the fourth great war felt less confounding than this. How was that possible, when they’d been fighting against two people who had been claiming to be the same person? Nothing could be more confusing than that, and yet...

What pulled her out was the mention of a new name. Lee had called Naruto something different, and the boy hadn’t so much as blinked at it. Lee had called him Menma. No one mentioned the error. Nothing was making sense, and everything was becoming less and less coherent.

“Is something wrong?” Naruto-but-actually-Menma said, staring at her. Through her. His stern expression radiated that he did not actually care. It made Tenten feel worse.

It was obvious that Tenten couldn’t respond to the question without sounding completely insane. Even if she could respond, where was she to begin? Why aren’t we on the battlefield? Where’s Madara? Why is your hair like that? What’s that dopey look on Sasuke’s face for? Why is Lee wearing shorts? What the hell is happening?

And above all, the question that had been on loop in her head for what felt like an hour: how is Neji alive and well?

But these questions seemed to be hers alone. She could not bring herself to share them. No one thought this happenstance meeting on the street was strange. Tenten was too perplexed to respond. She gave a quick shake her head. Everything is perfectly fine.

“Good,” he replied solemnly, almost in a threatening way. Then, he gestured with his head for his team to keep walking. What was his deal? Where was his perpetual positivity?

In an uncharacteristic show of utter denseness, Sakura was happy to follow. She turned away without looking at Tenten, making Tenten wonder if Sakura had noticed she was even there.

Sasuke, however, definitely noticed that she was there. He did not follow his team away. Instead, he purred at her, “I’ll see you tonight, then.” Tenten could only hope that she had only imagined the way Sasuke winked at her. He went from looking dopey to looking downright idiotic. Then he turned on his heel to leave with his team. Regardless if it was her imagination, it revolted her.

“Are you sure you are all right?” Lee asked after her team was alone again. Well, alone as they could be, considering that life was carrying on as normal around them.

A thought flickered through her mind and she wasn’t sure it was hers. Maybe there was no war. That couldn't have been her own thought. Of course there was a war. There was a horrible war going on that had killed so many. It had killed Neji.

This was somehow a dream. She didn’t know how that could be, but it was the only way to accept it. It felt too real. It was hard to accept this as fake. Turning around, Tenten still could not believe Neji was here. Neji was still standing without a scratch. Sure, he was making a stupid face she’d never before seen him pull, but she’d take that. It was better than the reality on the battlefield.

She let herself revel in it even if it was for one, fleeting, self-indulgent moment. She felt she deserved that much, for what she’d been through. For what they’d all been through. But she still had to respond, because Lee had asked her a question.

“Um.” She couldn’t get a word out, let alone string up a sentence. She took time to blink a few times. Her tears had disappeared as quickly as they’d come, likely shaken by the confusion. She had nothing to blink away now, but she hoped that one of these blinks would take her back to reality.

They did not do that, but they did give her time to think. “Wait, what? What did he mean when he said that?” With her thumb, she pointed behind her in the general direction team seven had gone.

Lee grinned, and it felt too real. “The twelve of us are going for dinner tonight, of course! How could you have forgotten? We rarely all get the time to see each other anymore so we’ve been doing this whenever we can.” His enthusiasm, as always, was not contagious. If anything, this was panic-inducing. It would not help her get back to where she belonged.

She agreed to go anyway.

\--

There wasn’t even a shred of morbid curiosity that helped bring her here. She was too numb to have made up an excuse not to. This was her best plan, and it wasn't even a plan.

She didn’t care that Shikamaru talked far too much. It didn't bother her that Hinata was wearing makeup and shouting across the table. All conversation was lost to her. All she could focus on was Neji, alive. It was hard not to stare

The scroll was still in her jacket. It was bulky, and though it miraculously couldn’t be seen on the outside, she could feel it digging in, far beyond just her skin. It was a constant reminder of what she was supposed to be doing. She was supposed to be trying to get out of here. It was obvious that this was not real, but it was pulling her in.

No, not "it." Neji was pulling her in, and this wasn't even him.

But it felt real. As dinner progressed, Tenten found herself losing any traction to return to normalcy. Neji’s laugh across the table was real, so here she stayed. She wondered if this was shameful. How could it be that someone as strong as herself could be so crippled by the presence of a lost teammate? It was a feeling that only she was experiencing. The only one who could scorn her for this was herself, and she was reluctant to do so. That was all it took to convince herself that this was not, in fact, shameful

“Tenten, are you feeling alright?” Ino didn’t even look at her while she asked the question. How was it that everyone seemed to notice Tenten’s odd behavior, but not each other’s? Ino was so quiet. Tenten was a stranger here, but only to herself. For all others, she was being welcomed as if simply having an off day.

She barely had to say anything to get the suspicion off her. She simply had to mumble something about an upset stomach and look away. It wasn't even a lie, and it was an answer satisfying enough for Ino to not inquire further. Tenten slipped back into her lonely, self-induced fog.

What pulled her out was something she’d never heard before: Hinata was yelling. It was hard to ignore. Not only was she yelling, but she was threatening Neji.

“I will remove your eyes,” Hinata hissed in a voice nothing short of a promise, leaning in close, clenching a fist.

Neji seemed… unfazed. Tenten pretended to be, too.

Then, there was more shouting, and it came to be too much. Tenten stood up, and barely avoiding scrutiny from her friends, left the restaurant. She couldn’t stop herself from hesitating in the doorway. She turned around and caught the fleeting stares of Neji and Lee. Then, they looked at each other, and she was gone.

Outside, she had to remember to breathe so that she wouldn’t throw up. Her head was spinning again.

It was obvious that this was a genjutsu. This couldn’t have been a massive prank pulled on her. Even if it were, it was far from funny and her classmates would have given it up by now. She didn't know what she did to deserve this.

Tenten affirmed that this was not Konoha on the walk home. She looked up and the faces on the Hokage Rock didn’t match up. The fourth Hokage was not someone she recognized. It was a fact she could not comprehend. It didn’t even surprise her. It was just one more sign that she wasn't at home.

She could not release the genjutsu. Maybe it was the commotion of the night around her, or maybe it was because her ninjutsu skills were subpar. No matter what it was, she couldn't get herself out of this world. She had to get back to the battlefield but it no longer seemed to exist. Nowhere to go but home, she thought, but then shook it away. These thoughts were not hers; they couldn't be.

She had to get back. She had a fleeting thought to run away. To go back to where she last remembered fighting, but that would take days, and she wouldn’t know what to do if there was nothing there. She had no choice but to go home for the night, giving in to that idea that couldn't have originated within her.

\--

Sleeping was never going to be an option. She didn’t even change out of her day clothes. She sat at the foot of her bed, holding the scroll in both hands until her knuckles hurt. This had to somehow be the key to ending the battle, but she didn't know how. This scroll was more important than she would ever be. That it was in her hands, away from the battle, away from her world, was devastating in a way she couldn't describe with language.

She had willingly separated from her fake group back there. She didn’t know how anyone else was doing. In reality, Lee and Guy could be in a similar state too... Or worse.

But Neji was alive here. Her thoughts kept cycling back to this. His death was too fresh for her to fully grasp the severity of that thought, and she didn't want to. It was already too painful. It was eating at her to a point where she became too overwhelmed to think of anything else. Returning to the war meant that she would have to return to a world where he was dead.

This scroll--it had to be more important than her emotions. It had to be. It had to be the thing that kept her grounded to the truth.

She was sitting with her back to her door. She heard it open. Tenten didn’t have to turn around to know that this horrible, cruel curse had infiltrated her home.

It was him. Neji sat on the bed beside her and no words were spoken for a painful few seconds. She closed her eyes, squeezing them tight as if that would will this all away.

He spoke first. “Something is wrong, but I can’t tell what’s going on.” He spoke only above a murmur, exactly like how the real Neji would talk, exactly like--

She couldn’t lie to herself forever. She took a deep breath and squeezed the scroll tighter in her hands.

“What is that?”

“Oh, it’s…” Tenten didn’t have the energy to concoct a lie.

“You’ve been carrying it around all day. I... saw it with Byakugan.” A beat passed where Tenten dropped it onto the floor. It rolled unceremoniously under her bed.

She inhaled, trying to find the right words that would not make her sound like a lunatic, but nothing would come. She exhaled and was becoming less and less capable of coherent thought. She couldn't even look at him.

He was patient. Too patient, just like...

Come on, Neji died. He died! Tenten took in a breath once more.

"Okay," she began, cautiously, still not looking at her teammate, "There isn't any way to explain this in a way that won't make you think any less of me."

Neji did not move, but she swore that she could feel that he wanted to. He said, completely like himself, "There isn't a thing you could do that would make me think any less of you."

This opened a floodgate within Tenten. She started too far back in her story, with the masked man taking down the jinchuuriki. She hadn't gotten far into her story when Neji seemed to shift in surprise, and she stopped. "What?"

"Who is Naruto?"

Right. This was a different universe. "He... Has a different name here. He's the blond guy, earlier he wouldn't stop frowning..."

"Ah, that would be Menma. And he's a jinchuuriki?"

"Well, yes." Is he not, in this world?

"Hmm. His mother is, but I don't recall anything about him becoming one at any point. You would have to ask him."

His mother was alive--this was news to Tenten. Though it would have been nice to take a minute and wrap her head around that, she could not, and therefore did not. She continued her story, picking up where the ten-tails had partially come together. She was talking so fast--too fast. How was Neji even keeping up, let alone not interrupting her with questions? Tenten was about to lose her composure.

"And--and the masked guy wanted to destroy everyone's hopes at once, so he went in to kill Naruto--or, Menma, I guess, but Hinata stepped in, and then you..." And that was all she could say before she lost it. She hated this. This was not correct. She should not be here. Neji should not be here.

But he was here. As soon as the tears began in the corners of her eyes, he leaned over and wrapped his arms around her, and he was warm. He was real, and the tears hiding in her eyes moved on to dampen his clothes as she descended into incoherent sobs.

"It's okay," he promised, mumbling into her shoulder. "I'm here. The war doesn't matter."

If Tenten had been in her right mind, she would have pulled herself out of his grasp in shock. How could the war not matter? It was the only thing that mattered. She had important business, and Neji was...

Right. Neji was not real. She was too stubborn to let that go. He was dead, but he was right here and this felt like every other time they had spent time together before. She couldn't argue with him, becuase she was not in her right mind. She continued to sob until her head hurt and she was devolving into hiccups. Neji did not say anything more. He never judged her when she lost her composure, though this did not happen often. It was seldom enough to be embarrassing.

Her breathing was shaky. She was tired. Her crying was not the catharsis she had wanted. It would take more than that, and it wasn't what she needed. She needed to go, needed to--

"You should get some rest," Neji said, finally shifting away from her. He did not let go of her arm. It was comforting, even if his grip was too tight. "It sounds like you have been through a lot. I'll go so that--"

"No," Tenten said, too quickly. In any other case, surely that would have been mortifying. Perhaps even more embarrassing than the initial cry. No, she didn't have a lower limit for embarrassment right now. So she went on without hesitation. "Don't go, please. I don't want you to go." What she couldn't say was "You can't leave me again."

"Tenten, I'm not--" Her stomach lurched when he said her name. She didn't think she had any more energy to cry, but the tears resurfaced. This made Neji visibly reconsider. He sighed and said, "Fine, but this is not going to be a regular occurrence. Once you feel better, things will go back to normal."

No, things would never go back to normal, and Tenten thought she wasn't going to be able to forget that. But as she collapsed back into her bed, and Neji sat beside her, there was an odd feeling of comfort that tucked her in tighter than any blanket could.

Maybe she would wake up tomorrow and he would be gone. Maybe he would still be sitting there, stiff and sore. Maybe he'd be laying beside her. Regardless, Tenten would wake up all the same and still be in this cursed world.

Even if it was not real, she didn’t have to detest it at all times.


End file.
